Drugs and (Dis)order Key Informant Interviews in Shan State Myanmar, 2018

Collection of face-to-face semi-structured interviews with interviewees in Shan State, eastern Myanmar, carried out as part of the GCRF Drugs and (dis)order project. Interviews were carried out in the first year of the project and explore narratives around illicit drugs across and within communities, and focus on history, political economy, health and livelihoods, and ethnography with respect to local drug problems in Shan state. The upland areas of Shan are perfectly suited to the cultivation of opium poppy, which has provided livelihood security in impoverished rural areas but also became a financial pillar to sustain armed conflict. In recent decades, the relationship between drugs and conflict has become more complex. The issue has extended beyond opium cultivation to the manufacture and supply of other drugs, such as methamphetamines. Local communities are some of those must vulnerable to the harms related to changing patterns of drug use, including increasing levels of heroin-injecting and methamphetamine use.